8 Great Books: Summer Reading For Pilots

1. Mike Busch on Engines
What every aircraft owner needs to know about the design, operation, condition monitoring, maintenance and troubleshooting of piston aircraft engines

By Mike Busch
Paperback
ISBN: 978-1718608955

Like it or not, as aircraft owners and pilots, our fates are inextricably tied to the piston engines that power our aircraft. At the same time, these engines, complex machines that are as inscrutable in their functioning as they are in their malfunctioning, are the sources of more myth, misinformation and crackpot theory than any other in all of aviation. The leading authority on our engines, A&P and longtime aviation writer Mike Busch, knows so much about engines that it's daunting, and he shares nearly all of that wisdom in this remarkable 490-page tome. All of your most arcane questions about engine construction, operation, maintenance, repair and overhaul are to be found in this priceless volume. While Busch's theories are sometimes controversial---we won't get started on the lean-of-peak operation debate---his explanations are clearheaded and addressed in ways that even non-engine-tech savvy aviators can understand. Available on amazon.com, this book is an absolute must-own for any aircraft owner and, particularly, for any would be first-time buyer. Highly recommended.

2. Honest Vision: The Donald Douglas Story
Timeless leadership lessons from an engineering mind and aviation icon

By Julie Boatman Filucci
Aviation Supplies and Academics 
Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-61954-406-2

Veteran aviation journalist Julie Boatman Filucci is a leading expert on the life and airplanes of Donald Wills Douglas, the founder of Douglas Aircraft and the man who brought practical air transportation to the masses. An ATP and CFI with a type rating in the Douglas DC-3, Boatman Filucci in this book peers into the life and times of Douglas to uncover what drove him to create the future of aviation, help the war effort with some iconic fighting aircraft, what led him to his greatest successes and what ultimately led to the challenges even his iconic company could not defeat. If you love Douglas airplanes and the history of early air transport, as we do, Honest Vision is a must read.

3. An Aviator's Field Guide to Middle-Altitude Flying
Practical skills and tips for flying between 10,000 and 25,000 MSL

By Jason Blair
Aviation Supplies and Academics 
Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-61954-593-9

This handy primer on moving up to high-altitude aviating gives pilots the context for understanding the risks and demands of flight that are unique to the middle altitudes. In it Blair, an active instructor and FAA designated examiner, (as well as a contributing editor to Plane & Pilot), shares his long experience in this realm, covering topics including performance and fuel calculations, descent planning,  oxygen use and weight and balance. Blair also covers those topics few other authors venture into, including insurance issues and pilot qualification concerns.

4. How To Land A Plane

By Mark Vanhoenacker
Quercus Books  
Hard Cover
ISBN: 978-1-78648-715-5

From Mark Vanhoenacker, author of the bestselling aviation memoir Skyfaring and former contributing editor at Plane & Pilot, comes an odd little book that's not really for pilots but, rather, for those folks who always wondered about what it's like to be a pilot. How to Land a Plane, part of the Little Ways to Live a Big Life series from Quercus, focuses on just one of a pilot's jobs, landing an airplane. Because the book is intended for non-pilots, Vanhoenacker uses language appropriate to absolute beginners while at the same time managing to not dumb down the concepts. Somehow, the approach makes for great reading for full-fledged pilots, too, as it gives insights into what we do by removing the structures of assumption that underlay our understanding of flight. A great read for that precocious kid with a growing love of things with wings, for that nervous spouse or even for us pilots.

5. 20 Ways To Fail Your Flight Test
A Practical Guide to Earning Your Notice of Disapproval

By Roger Sharp
Self published
Spiral Bound

Don't be thrown off by the look and feel of this little gem. How to Fail Your Flight Test, self-published by longtime CFI and FAA designated examiner Roger Sharp, is a gold mine of great advice on taking and passing---yes, passing!---your practical flight test. Presented with a mix of Sharp's unique brand of acerbic wit and laugh-out-loud sarcasm, How to Fail Your Flight Test takes a complex subject and presents it in its lowest common denominator form by giving practical advice on how to work with (and maybe work) your examiner. In tip #3, for instance, Sharp recommends to those looking to fail their test to not practice giving their answers aloud, while in tip #17 he suggests you never look outside the plane while flying the VFR portion of your test.  These gems, along with many others, will prepare the reader for that FAA test with heaping doses of practical wisdom delivered with a laugh and a smile. Email the author for purchase information at jfjm200@gmail.com.

6. Venture Into The Stratosphere
Flying the First Jetliners

By Dominic Colvert
Morgan Jones Publishing
Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-68350-2

Post World War II air transport made its own giant leaps, in speed, range, ceiling, reliability and economy, all thanks to the turbine engines powering new pressurized jets of the era. In his fascinating work, Into The Stratosphere, Dominic Colvert, a former flight engineer on the de Havilland Comet, the first jetliner, but also a Berkeley educated engineer, Silicon Valley executive and California history scholar discusses the early days of jet powered air transport. So this memoir, while it covers the usual ground, who flew what, where and how, delivers those details with a breadth of knowledge and wry humor and insight that make it an exceptional take on a remarkable era in aviation history.

7. Mountain, Canyon, and Backcountry Flying

By Amy L. Hoover and R.K. Dick Williams
Aviation Supplies and Academics 
Paperback
ISBN 978-1-61954-741-4

Flying in the mountains and valleys of the great American West is a serious and seriously rewarding pursuit, one not to be taken for granted or ever taken lightly. In their comprehensive volume on the subject, Hoover and Williams, both experienced back country aviators and educators, discuss every imaginable element of flying the backcountry, including the terrain itself, which they discuss in great detail, weather considerations, equipment, landing environment, aircraft performance, safety hazards and much, much more. And they do it all with careful attention to the real risks, discussing throughout actual accidents that have taken place in the backcountry and the lessons we can learn from them. Mountain, Canyon, And Backcountry Flying is a compendium of wisdom and proven risk mitigation strategies that have taken the authors tens of thousands of hours of backcountry flying to amass. At a suggested retail price of $39.95, it's not a cheap book, but if you're planning to fly in such spectacular country, it's a book you need by your side.

8. Last Days of The Concorde
The Crash of Flight 4590 and the End of Supersonic Transport

By Samme Chittum
Smithsonian Books 
Hardcover
ISBN 978-1-58834-629-2

The crash of The Air France Concorde Flight 4590 on departure from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris on July 25, 2000, was almost as mysterious as it was tragic. How did it go up in flames, killing all 109 people aboard the supersonic transport plane along with four others on the ground? The answer to that mystery revealed a chain of calamity, which French investigators doggedly traced back to an improper maintenance event on a different airplane. It was ultimately revealed to have been staggeringly random and unlikely. In the book Chittum expertly retraces and explicates the lines investigators followed to solve the mystery and clear the design of Concorde from blame for the catastrophe. Still, the first and only crash of a Concorde was the beginning of the end for the sole supersonic transport in the world. Riveting reading.